3 ms·

But how about spain, france & the UK?

• venomsnake 10y ago
  Different culture. People like, use, and depend on subways so they like the extensions and expect their governments to get shit done. And in Europe the power of a single individual to block major project is limited.
  • matt4077 10y ago
    Well in France any hamster is basically empowered to stop a project... While we're guessing, this may just be due to the very special environment that is Manhattan. It's been a few years since I read about it, but I seem to remember that they had to fight some quite unusual challenges, including skyscrapers, the constant influx of water, and both granite and basically liquid sediments. Manhattan probably also has an insane amount od existing, badly documented underground infrastructure.
• tomarr 10y ago
  The UK also has problems with particularly expensive infrastructure projects. They tend to cost magnitudes more in common law countries (USA, Canada, UK, Australia, NZ. This is generally down to the land and legal costs, with the dispute framework becoming much more expensive. Land and property rights are much more extensively protected in common law countries.
  • xioxox 10y ago
    Germany has also had massive cost problems with some projects, such as the Hamburg concert hall. There's also the Berlin airport which is years late and has costs over twice of what was expected.
• Symmetry 10y ago
  They handle environmental impact by regulatory agency, not by giving everybody and their brother the right to sue to stop the project on environmental grounds. The way the US does it keeps regulatory bodies relatively small and cheap in budget terms by passing on the enforcement costs to private parties. But the overall costs and delays go way, way up.